Courtesy Photo | The commander of the 18th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Robert R. Allardice, shared his advice...... read more read more
FARGO, N.D. — The commander of the 18th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Robert R. Allardice, shared his advice for leading in a joint environment today, March 12, at the North Dakota National Guard Professional Development Workshop and Combined Associations Conference in Fargo.
In a complex, strategic environment, military members need to understand the intricacies of working in a global environment, he said, whether it’s with nation states; tribal, ethnic and religious systems; global corporations, violent extremist organizations or activist groups.
Allardice, from Scott Air Force Base’s Air Mobility Command, said the National Guard is "the best equipped to understand networks and to understand tribal organizations" since Guardsmen do that type of work daily by operating at the state and national levels, as well as in local communities.
"You have a skill set you don’t even recognize," Allardice said to the attendees. Beyond that, leading in a joint environment requires three distinct skills: a vision, the ability to discern people’s capabilities and the ability to execute the mission.
"When you are asked to respond today in the military, it’s a crisis. ... People don’t know what to do, so they turn to the military," Allardice said.
When walking into any crisis situation, he said, leaders need to be able to assess the situation, decide what can be done and then chart out a course to accomplish it. That’s the vision part of leading in a joint environment, and that vision is one of the reasons "we get called so much in uniform."
When responding in uniform, leaders need to understand what their subordinates are capable of performing, and "you have a unique ability to do that as a Guardsman," Allardice said.
Unlike active duty, Guardsmen typically serve together for years; they also have civilian skills that they bring to the mission.
"The last thing you need to be able to do is execute, and when I say execute, I’m talking about being able to get the job done. ... You’re given the impossible task to build up the Iraqi air force," he said, using the example of his own deployment with North Dakota’s Col. Michael Wobbema to Iraq in 2007. Just yesterday, Allardice received a photo from Iraq depicting a crew of Iraqi pilots about to begin an F-16 training program "just three years later."
Together, vision, discernment and execution are keys to accomplishing a mission such as that in a joint operational environment.
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 03.12.2010 13:46 |
| Story ID: | 46583 |
| Location: | FARGO, US |
| Web Views: | 411 |
| Downloads: | 224 |
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